Police say ‘split-second decision’ led to killing of victim by FBI agent

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo explains what led up to the fatal shooting of a kidnapped man by an FBI agent during a Tuesday news conference in Houston. Acevedo explained the FBI SWAT team agent breached through a window with the front of his rifle, and felt pulling on the weapon from someone inside the room. The agent, fearful to lose his weapon decided to fire the rifle, shooting the kidnapping victim, Ulises Valladares.

Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez /Houston Chronicle

The FBI agent who fatally shot a kidnapping victim during a raid of a northeast Houston home last week made a “split-second decision” to fire his assault rifle after the victim he was sent to rescue grabbed the weapon in a dark room, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday.

The agent, whom Acevedo declined to identify, was using an M-4 assault rifle to break into an unlit side room through a window at a home in the 7300 block of Elbert Street, after another agent dropped the breaching tool normally used to enter homes.

The agent was unaware that the kidnapping victim, Ulises Valladares, still bound, was being held in that room when his rifle was grabbed by someone. The agent, fearing that one of the kidnappers was attempting to wrest the rifle away from him, fired two shots, one of which killed the Conroe father.

“Tragically and sadly, Mr. Valladares was right by that window,” Acevedo said during a Tuesday morning news conference. “And he was bound with his hands in front of him and taped and not able to see in the dark himself.”

Even as investigators work to unravel the tragic chain of events, the slain man’s family is striving to pick up the pieces. They have hired an attorney to regain custody of Valladares’ 12-year-old son, who was with his father in the family’s Conroe home Wednesday morning after the pair of assailants forced their way in. He was bound and left in the residence, and was able to free himself and go to neighbors who called authorities.

The attackers allegedly kidnapped Valladares in Conroe, then helped transfer him to the Trinity Gardens home where the FBI eventually tracked him.

The agents in the raid made a “tactical decision” not to use any lighting because they didn’t want to blind another team that was entering through another side of the home, Acevedo said.

“It was dark,” the chief said of the room in which Valladares was being held after being kidnapped a day earlier. “There was no lighting inside the room.”

The chief said the special investigations unit of his department, which is examining the shooting, has spoken with the agent. There is not body camera footage of the incident, he said.

Acevedo declined to say whether any parts of the operation were inconsistent with FBI policy, but said HPD, which was not involved with the raid itself, does “low-light firearms training on a regular basis.”

“I would venture to guess they do as well,” he said of the FBI. “But again, you can train all you want. Lighting conditions are lighting conditions.”

HPD’s investigation of the shooting has not yet finished, Acevedo said, and any potential charges would be referred to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. It’s standard practice for the agency to investigate any officer-involved shooting within city limits.

However, the chief repeatedly defended the FBI’s team, calling the incident a “tragedy” and placing blame on those involved in the kidnapping.

“The people that started this chain of events that led to the death of an innocent man are the people that kidnapped that man,” he said. “And at the end of the day, if he hadn’t been kidnapped, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Three people who were charged last week in Valladares’ kidnapping.

Even before police released the new details about the incident, the slain man’s brother struggled for answers.

Ernesto Valladares, a factory worker who was not home when the kidnappers burst in, this week filed for full custody of the child, according to his attorney, Doug York. The boy’s mother died of cancer a number of years ago, leaving the child with no other parental figures.

Although the surviving Valladares brother had lived with the boy for years and the two have a “great bond,” he has not been able to see him since the shooting, according to his lawyer.

Now, the boy’s uncle is due back in a Montgomery County courtroom on Feb. 6 for a hearing, but York said he’s also looking into the possibility of filing a civil lawsuit, which could entail a wrongful death claim.

“He’s hired me to investigate the civil side of this case,” York said. “We’re still investigating on our end. He’s exploring all of his options.”

The predawn raid came about 20 hours after Valladares was taken for ransom from his Conroe home by two men who later claimed to be members of a Mexican cartel. Investigators have since said that was a scare tactic designed to intimidate Valladares’ brother into giving them money.

Valladares’ young son said the two men burst into their home on Tyler Lane early Wednesday morning. After restraining the boy and his father, the two then demanded money that they said was owed to them by Ernesto Valladares, who also lived at the home.

They then left and took Ulises Valladares with them, authorities said, and over the course of the day made repeated phone calls to Ernesto Valladares’ phone.

The Conroe Police Department sought the FBI’s help to trace those calls, which ultimately led to the 3:30 a.m. raid at the northeast Houston home.

FBI spokeswoman Christina Garza told the Chronicle last week that the shooting was the first agent-involved shooting in the Houston area in more than a decade.